The Dominican Republic is going to return on the Russian market in 2016

For last several years, Dominican Republic was a popular winter beach destination for Russians. Although, for six months of 2015, the number of tourists due to the weakening of the ruble fell by 60%. However, the tourist authorities are confident that next year the decline will stop, and the republic will be able to regain lost ground in the Russian market. The director of the department of international promotion of the Ministry of Tourism of the Dominican Republic Indira Jose discussed with Interfax the prospects of the upcoming season. - How the economic crisis in Russia has affected your destination? - The crisis, of course, greatly affected the flow of tourists from Russia. We see a serious decline. If the first eight months of 2014, the Dominican Republic was visited by 120.1 thousand Russians, in the same period of this year - only by 39.7 thousand. However, the ministry has no plans to leave the Russian market. - And what are the predictions for coming winter season for the Russian market? - We believe that the decline in tourist traffic in 2016 will stop. Proof of this is the statement of the flight program of the Russian tour operators for the upcoming season (October 2015 - March 2016). It will be quite a lot of flights. Pegas Touristik said about one flight from St. Petersburg and two flights from Moscow, Anex Tour talked about a flight from Moscow to Punta Cana. They will not fly in about every 10-11 days. Transaero also increases the number of flights to four per week. - By the way, because of the situation with the sale of Transaero, how Aeroflot will affect flights to the Dominican Republic? After all, "Transaero" has been the main carrier on the route. - It is difficult is to predict anything, we need to wait for completion of the transaction. But tour operators have not yet revised their winter contracts, and this gives us hope that all will be well. - Did the situation on other international markets allow you to compensate the losses on the Russian market? - From January to August 2015, the country was visited by almost 4.3 million tourists. This is 7.9% more than in the same period a year earlier. So the numbers are not bad. In general, tourists come from the United States, Canada, Western Europe, the number of tourists from the countries of South America significantly increased .